The former main building of the Helsinki University of Technology took on a new role when three universities were merged as Aalto University in 2010. The Otaniemi Campus designed by Alvar Aalto was chosen as the shared home of the Aalto Schools of Engineering, Business and
Arts & Design.

The main building was originally completed in two stages in 1964 and 1974. The entire building was in need of renovation to bring it up to a modern-day university’s needs, including improved accessibility and ﬂexible educational spaces. Some facilities were repurposed as they no longer served their original function. The HVAC systems, safety exits and ﬁxtures were also in need of modernization.

Renovating such a prestigious landmark – exemplifying as it does a ‘total work of art’ – was a challenge. With the advent of ﬂexible working and learning practices, old buildings – even masterpieces – must adapt to changing user needs to maintain their value. Retroﬁtting ﬂexible educational spaces in an old building without altering the original architectural concept is difficult, however. The building required new HVAC systems and safety exits for which no space was allocated in the original plan. Architects NRT showed exemplary skill in overcoming these challenges in their tailored planning and execution.

Each wing – variably 2-4 storeys high – is designed to function as a separate building linked to the campus complex. The main volume is rhythmically articulated by small courtyards. Aalto

envisioned a leafy, American-style enclosed campus with paths traversing the yards between the main building, library and shop. The striking, auditorium-like roof of the low-rise main building is an iconic campus landmark.

The main façades, spatial logic and detailing were fully preserved, with the entrance hall, auditorium and main cor- ridors superbly restored to their former glory. The workroom wings underwent heavier modiﬁcations, with spaces opened up for greater ﬂexibility. Most of the new ventilation engine rooms are now located in the basement, maintaining the hori-zontal proﬁle of the teaching wings. The architects preserved the most valuable features of the architecture in a logical hierarchy. The laboratories, studios and lecture rooms were converted into open spaces that can be furnished adaptably to serve group learning activities. The open-plan work hubs are spatially ingenious, though the furniture could be more inspiring and better balanced with the architecture.

Today the architect is no longer a ‘creative genius’ so much as a ‘master negotiator’ who strikes a balance between the project’s architectural aspirations, the wishes of various user groups and other practical requirements. In this project, Architects NRT successfully reconciled goals that were to some extent contradictory. The building was still in use by the university when the renovations began, and its user base expanded after the school became part of Aalto University. NRT did excellent work in catering to the needs of all of the school’s faculties in this ambitious renovation project. HR

<The House of Prajna> seems like a vessel heading for the woods, embraced by the forest, with the pentagon shape of building site reminding of that of ship. On the bow of ship shape, a persimmon tree over hundred year old branches its arms toward the large sky with hollowed trunk. Although this house is a result of intentional design, I feel like it is already been completed by thousands of interactions of invisible components. Every time I visit, I feel like appreciating the work of someone else’s.

The house is located in Gwacheon near Seoul. Gwacheon has been playing a role of government city, and praised for an ideal place for living. Other houses in the district, line along the street a bit apart from each other, and the surrounding woods enclave the town like a blanket. The site feels cozy.

At first, the owner of the house, a middle aged couple, said in tranquil but clear tone that they have four family members, have a dog and want to have a separate workroom distinctive from the living place. They bought the land ten years ago, and other lots around the site have been already filled out. Lastly, they wanted to preserve the awesome persimmon tree.

The word ‘Prajna’ originally comes from Sanskrit which means wisdom. The meaning of wisdom could be broadened to signify the ideal state of acknowledging the world without any barrier. Thus, the ‘Prajna’ also means a ‘wisdom which can be attained after the true sense of realization about the whole living things.’

Distinctive from other religions, Buddhism aims for pursuing the realization instead of salvation for the next world or wealth of earthly life. Achieving ‘prajna’ through realization is the main purpose of the Buddhism. The realizations comes from looking back, observing the world with a transitory pause. Putting a pause in the middle of rushing life gives the opportunity to purify the distorted confusions originating from one’s desires.

Architecture is not far from this process for it creates the way to permeate both the life and thoughts, and a house contains the both family and thoughts of the family. These thoughts help to imagine the images of floor and garden, but the result is not always predictable because the harmonization of several factors. Some are not even clear as to what they are.

The main theme of this house is an ‘insight meditation.’ There are several reasons why exclusive space for meditation has been located in the center of the house. The owner of the house studies Buddhism in his spare time and needs a place for a sitting meditation, and also his wife has been practicing tea ceremony for many years. Thus, I located the meditation room in the center, and only aftwerwards I designed other parts of the house, such as living place, dining room and bathroom.

Each part of the house is gradually raised, taking advantage of the trait of land, with northern part getting higher than the road. And this also creates a sense of place to each function.

After that, I added the other necessary functions of the house in a spiral composition as if ‘samsara’ were manifested in the Buddhism. Separated parts of the house gather toward the center where persimmon tree stand, but then they are also fragmented at the same time. Then, we drew a line with the corridor which penetrates the whole house, cutting through each room, garden, and terrace. In other words, the beginning and end, inside and outside of the house are all connected to each other. In the center of the house, under the persimmon tree, there is a tiny room, hardly fitting one person, used for meditation.

<The House of Prajna> also blurs the boundary of inside and outside. The house is intertwined with the woods, and the owner takes a place near the mountain like a hermit, and contemplates the outside world from inside the house.

The ultimate pursuit of Buddhism is to ‘realize’. This realization enables people to escape from the boundless desires by unlimited wisdom. Everything is connected to each other. Hence there is no absolute image or location. Every existence could be substantial or shallow, and soul or body simultaneously.

House could be a space of presenting the journey of completing our imperfection, enabling us to ‘realize’ and be wise.

On a gritty stretch of Venice Boulevard in Los Angeles, the PSPMLA office sits on a previously vacant 2,500 sf infill commercial parcel. Dubbed the “Light Box” for its simple geometry slotted in acknowledgement of the natural solar conditions, the 2,200 sf office for a boutique property management firm discretely slips into the streetscape of tightly packed auto body shops, neon sign fabricators, digital printers, and various light commercial businesses. The design expands upon the urban texture of the street, while also carving out a bright, naturally illuminated respite for the office staff and their clientele.

The project is composed of two primary furniture elements, a double height rift sawn white oak clad spatial volume and a white lacquered cluster of seating modules, inserted into a 25’-0” wide X 66’-6” long X 22’-6” tall building envelope. To maximize the useable area of the narrow lot, the exterior walls were assembled and waterproofing installed horizontally on site and then tilted into position along the property lines with a crane. Following the completion of the envelope, the furniture elements were installed within the space. The office’s interior is organized into three zones of program: the double height ground floor area contains the primary circulation and the staff seating; the ground floor of the wood insertion is populated by the waiting room, conference room, two management offices, and the restrooms; and the mezzanine holds additional staff workrooms and storage areas.

In response to the contrasting goals of an open and naturally lit, yet secure and private working environment, the “Light Box” is fitted with an array of skylights within the ceiling slots at the roof and a perforated steel screen at the Venice Boulevard façade. The skylights register the time of day through the constantly changing light on the wood interior. In addition, the scale and orientation of the façade screen provides diffused lighting in the afternoon and presents an illuminated edifice by night to safely light the sidewalk and bike parking at the street. Ultimately, the “Light Box” serves as a device to both capture and emit the quintessential glow of Los Angeles.

The key idea of the Life Science Centre architecture are the science and teaching complex modules forming the public space layout and comprising the integral whole like different cells of the matter. Cube-shaped volumes in open spaces of Saulėtekis, reiterating the natural context and building a humanist, traditional urban structure characteristic of the city of Vilnius, resemble a feature of the historical Vilnius University ensemble – a cosy inner courtyard. The volumes comprising the square perimeter and the entrance to the building are moved out over the glass vestibule and the merging space unites the areas of the main lobby, the courtyard and the passage, seamlessly linking them with the environment.

The monumental expression of the building architecture provides exceptionality and reflects the typological purpose, symbolises the austerity of science and creates a solid character of the new complex. Life is movement and growth. Notedly vibrant vertical lines of facades inspired by the impressive nature and the textural image of the adjacent trunks of the pine trees create a playful abundance of different points of view.

Indoor premises are planned universally, the ongoing research and training processes can be organised as needed – jointly or separately. Researchers will enjoy ultra modern laboratories, quiet workrooms and open recreation areas. Student premises can function independently but during lectures scientists and students will meet in the audiences, teaching laboratories etc. General spaces are adapted for recreation and independent studies.

The lecture auditorium complex is individualised and has a separate entrance. It can be used as an independent conference centre.

The clients are Belarusian businessmen, whose field of activity is related to interior design and curtains. They found the bureau in 2007 and requested to design a family house in Minsk, Belarus. They desired a house which would be designed in a contemporary manner, which was surprising, knowing the eclectic classical style of Belarusian architecture those days.

The beginning of designing process was quite difficult, because of indefinite boundaries and altitudes of the site. The topographic map was necessary, and it was really difficult to get one at that time. When the architects finally got the material, they realized that the parcel was very narrow and long, with the forest on one side and a street on another. The narrow sides of the site bordered with tacky post – Soviet style buildings. These circumstances led to an idea to design an ascetic, simple, rectangle shaped volume. The architects wanted to make this volume separate from the surroundings but also connected with the environment it was in. The only part which is designed completely closed is the west façade which isolated the building from the neighbor’s house nearby.

The third cube consists of the living room on the first floor, and a workroom and a bathroom on the second floor. To create dynamic and pulsing spaces in the house, in between those three cubes the space is open to the ceiling of the second floor. It creates an interesting scenario, in which the first floor is more private and narrow, until you reach the space in between the cubes, where the space opens itself up in two directions between the two floors.

The finishing of the house is made from black clinker bricks, which are used not only in the exterior but also in the interior. This eliminates the border between the outside and the inside. Also, this material is chosen to emphasize the simplicity of the building which contrasts with the surroundings.

The former main building of the Helsinki University of Technology took on a new role when three universities were merged as Aalto University in 2010. The Otaniemi Campus designed by Alvar Aalto was chosen as the shared home of the Aalto Schools of Engineering, Business and Arts & Design.

The main building was originally completed in two stages in 1964 and 1974. The entire building was in need of renovation to bring it up to a modern-day university’s needs, including improved accessibility and ﬂexible educational spaces. Some facilities were repurposed as they no longer served their original function. The HVAC systems, safety exits and ﬁxtures were also in need of modernization.

Renovating such a prestigious landmark – exemplifying as it does a ‘total work of art’ – was a challenge. With the advent of ﬂexible working and learning practices, old buildings – even masterpieces – must adapt to changing user needs to maintain their value. Retroﬁtting ﬂexible educational spaces in an old building without altering the original architectural concept is difficult, however. The building required new HVAC systems and safety exits for which no space was allocated in the original plan. Architects NRT showed exemplary skill in overcoming these challenges in their tailored planning and execution.

Each wing – variably 2-4 storeys high – is designed to function as a separate building linked to the campus complex. The main volume is rhythmically articulated by small courtyards. Aalto envisioned a leafy, American-style enclosed campus with paths traversing the yards between the main building, library and shop. The striking, auditorium-like roof of the low-rise main building is an iconic campus landmark.

The main façades, spatial logic and detailing were fully preserved, with the entrance hall, auditorium and main cor- ridors superbly restored to their former glory. The workroom wings underwent heavier modiﬁcations, with spaces opened up for greater ﬂexibility. Most of the new ventilation engine rooms are now located in the basement, maintaining the hori-zontal proﬁle of the teaching wings. The architects preserved the most valuable features of the architecture in a logical hierarchy. The laboratories, studios and lecture rooms were converted into open spaces that can be furnished adaptably to serve group learning activities. The open-plan work hubs are spatially ingenious, though the furniture could be more inspiring and better balanced with the architecture.

Today the architect is no longer a ‘creative genius’ so much as a ‘master negotiator’ who strikes a balance between the project’s architectural aspirations, the wishes of various user groups and other practical requirements. In this project, Architects NRT successfully reconciled goals that were to some extent contradictory. The building was still in use by the university when the renovations began, and its user base expanded after the school became part of Aalto University. NRT did excellent work in catering to the needs of all of the school’s faculties in this ambitious renovation project.

This is not just another house. Those alleys were well known to us. Not that much…we used to run endlessly over there, always waiting for someone to invite us to dinner. It was always too early to end the day. And that was the house of Aunt Amelia. Built by only one man, that used to show us a smile of pride and some benevolence, the perfect stereotomy of the stone cladding. To us, that has so much to learn and fancy about building. This was not just another house.

And yet, find out that at the bottom of the bottom of the alley, there was that land that did not fail to astonish. And the fig tree? And the church? Just there, so close! For the first time a peek beyond the alley. And that was a revelation.

And it was there, that we had the demanding task of enlarging the house. That house, built in time and with time. That house with terraces, outbuildings, stairs…, all connected…, workrooms, concrete sinks. All in a tiny space. It was an alley inside the alley, over the gradation of the exterior spaces.

And each one of the spaces had its own autonomy, always adjusting to a domestic scale, for which contributes, undoubtedly, the presence of gabled roofs and fragmentary volumetric composition.

Just keep going. Everything seems so natural. One more house, another volume, two more rooms. The vertex facing the church cut it – we want to look at her; on the backside of the house a fig tree imposes the limit and invites the pool. The connection to the pre-existing constructions it would be of course through terraces. This piece it is autonomous, with one floor and flat roof, witch trough a more organic design also resolve the connection between the house and the new garage area and the covered outdoor space, delimiting the lot. At South, dematerialized up its presence through the large mirror window in which the green garden is reflected.

The interior is quite simple: almost only a kitchen with a nice dining area, controlling the ceiling height, the volume of the room is suspended on the roof pitch, wich is accessible via a terrace or a staircase in black iron, is a scenic presence to counteract the clear tones of the interior. The dark color of the outside complemented by the use of flat tile, is another chapter in the history of the house, made of grey and white volumes, that at the same is looking for some abstraction in volumetric addition, balancing the composition.

A small house that wants to be big. A small footprint and simple construction means low cost. That’s the idea when we set about designing a house for a young couple on a site surrounded by other single-family homes on the west side of Gothenburg.

We turn inward with an atrium scheme, away from the view of—and from—the neighbors. The nicest view is toward the mature trees and the exposed bedrock in the southwest, so we open the courtyard up on that side.

The building is perched lightly on piers, hovering a half-meter over granite bedrock honed by the ice age. That means that to reach the building we need a stair and a ramp (accessibility requirement) along the blank northeast side. The elevated floor of the atrium courtyard is built up of decking over beams, with steps down to the surrounding terrain.

On the inside, it’s the outside that dominates. The narrow kitchen with its long table is always a part of the changing seasons that play out in the courtyard. Floor-to-ceiling glass and broad sliding doors help erase the boundary between inside and out. Okay, it’s a cliché—but it works.

There’s a steep ladderway up to the workroom (yes, there’s a glimpse of the sea from up there) and a shallow, almost monumentally processional stair up to a roof terrace. Additional rooms could be built around the courtyard if needed in the future to accommodate a bunch of children.

The entrance wall is thickened to hold a fireplace (the chimney is part of the roof landscape) with a built-in sofa, a room for collections, the kitchen (back-to-back with the exterior mechanical room), and an air-lock entry with guest bathroom.

The exterior is clad entirely in whitewashed (Sioo treated) smooth-planed spruce. It will age to a pale gray.

The new building of the Supreme Court of the Netherlands by KAAN Architecten has been decidedly integrated into the elegant historic city centre of The Hague. The building, which houses a staff of 350, verges on large: 104 metres long, 22 metres deep and 27 metres tall. These dimensions, with the measured vibrancy of its facades, add some allure to this part of the city centre.

The plane trees and six legal scholars in bronze seated on pedestals make for a wide gateway on the Korte Voorhout, a royal route leading to the buildings from Parliament. The entrance hall seems to have been chiselled from a solid block of marble. It serves as a sturdy base for the superstructure of glass panels and slender latticework. These and other ostensible contradictions seem to reflect the work of the Supreme Court itself. Open and closed, distinguished and functional, hard and ethereal, rough and refined – all exist alongside routine business, on which judgements are passed with great clarity of mind.

A court building is by definition a complex structure, because it must have various routes of circulation that cannot intersect. Routes for the public sitting in on sessions, for the Council and Procurator General staff, and for the detainees escorted for their sessions in court; all are separate from one another. The staff have their own entrance that opens onto their workspace. The justices have their own way to the courtrooms. Even the dossiers have their own route. It is a mark of achievement that a solution was designed that allowed all the routing to seem completely natural.

Given the public nature of jurisdiction, court buildings need to be accessible to the public. They are not only open to the public, they also have facilities for the public, visitors galleries in the courtrooms and waiting areas in front of them. On the other hand, court premises must also provide excellent conditions for work that requires a high degree of concentration and work that takes place behind closed doors.

The positioning of the building in regard to its location was chosen resolutely and with care. The low plateau with its row of scholars creates a subtle transition. Through this zone the building attaches itself to the street and its breadth is moderated. The way in which the top line has been sutured ensures a soft presence and inclusiveness within the orderly roof scape of this part of the city. Larger-scale urban design is successfully achieved by way of smaller-scale architectural choices. The so-called ‘backpack’ is also an example of subtle insertion. This extension at the building’s back reaches out and connects with the surroundings. The glazing fits into the same story. The six-metre high windows on the ground floor pull the space of the entrance hall into the city.

The entrance hall of the Supreme Court with courtrooms and the press area form the public area, a space double the floor height covering the full length of the building. The street zone of Korte Voorhout seems to flow through the six-metre tall glazing into the entrance hall. The floor of the hall has a geometric pattern in low-relief and is a landscape of sitting opportunities, dotted with loose, dark brown leather cushions, which meant that couches and chairs were unnecessary. The floors and walls are of a light grey limestone that exudes a velvety sensation.

The large courtroom with public seating for around 400 visitors and the small courtroom for around 80 visitors have floors, wainscotting and an oak wood bench. The walls behind the justices in both courtrooms, which the public face, are of brown veined translucent alabaster.

In the middle of the entrance hall, on the wall of the square inner courtyard between the two courtrooms, is a surprising painting by Helen Verhoeven commissioned for the spot. At 4 by 6½ metres, this monumental work is quite a bit bigger than Rembrandt’s Nightwatch in the Rijksmuseum. Titled Hoge Raad, the populous painting gives an impression of the history of the Netherlands as a society and state, and the place of the Supreme Court within this. The paintings represented within the painting refer to the consequences when orderly justice is absent. This touches on the Supreme Court’s motto, words penned by Dutch legal scholar Hugo de Groot (1583-1645), founder of international law and maritime law: UBI IUDICIA DEFICIUNT
INCIPIT BELLUM. Loosely translated the motto says: where legal justice falls short, armed struggle begins.

The windows on the floors above are of unified glazing, in panels of 90 centimetres with 10-centimetre joints, stretching the full height of the upper façade. There is an even division of vertical planes over the whole facade and the slender columns per window disappear in the radical rhythms of the frontage. From outside the facade seems to have no supporting columns. The entire concept is grounded in a single design detail.

All workspaces have regal ceiling heights of at least 3 metres. Usually in office buildings spent air is pumped away through air pipes that take up a lot of room in ceilings. In the Supreme Court building the jambs of the doorframes evacuate this air from the rooms to the open areas and ventilators above these transport the spent air out. A labyrinthine construction in the frames prevents sound leakage between workrooms and hallways.

Daylight in the heart of the building is very important, but the light wells and open atriums serve another important purpose for the building’s users. They form the core of the distinct domains of the Council and Procurator General. At the circumference of the openings each floor has pantries with coffee machines, seating and bookcases. The various departments are forged into unity around the central points of the building. The light, the sightlines across and up and down, and the open perspectives stimulate greetings and encounters, encourage an exchange of thoughts and opinions, advance the sharing of insights, and allow for informal relations in an infectious working environment. The balustrades around the opening are clad, on the open
sides, with vertically striped marble. The series of balustrades one above the other, the stone flooring and the beautiful natural light recall the interiors of the historic townhouses found on Lange Voorhout or the Vijverberg. They also have associations with longevity and respectability.

Three sides of the building are exposed to sun over the course of a day. These facades are climate controlled through the use of a spacious cavity in the glass casings: glass boxes that not only keep out the heat and cold, but also the sound of traffic outside. Nonetheless, the windows can be opened if desired, while still keeping wind and noise out of the interior. Sun blinds and light filters can also be individually regulated – the sun blinds are behind the first window and the light filters are behind the second. This individually controlled double protection produces a layered facade, flat and yet canted, a subtle nuance that adds even more elegance to the whole.

KAAN Architecten is a Rotterdam based architectural firm, operating in a global context and merging practical and academic expertise within the fields of architecture, urbanism and research on the built environment. !The studio, led by Kees Kaan, Vincent Panhuysen and Dikkie Scipio, consists of an international team of architects, landscape architects, urban planners, engineers and graphic designers. KAAN Architecten believes in cross-pollination between projects and disciplines as an essential tool to foster a critical debate within the studio.

Since the launch of the firm, KAAN Architecten handles and supervises a wide range of projects, actively working with the private and the public sector, with project teams that become increasingly multidisciplinary and dynamic. KAAN Architecten maintains a culture of constant evolution, which is essential in a profession that changes at a rapid pace. KAAN Architecten seeks to uphold long-term relationships with its clients, consultants and partners.

KAAN Architecten’s projects transcend the traditional notion of scale and typology, ranging from furniture and interiors to urban development and from retail and offices to museums and buildings for health and education.